9: The Music in Us

"Too many people die with their music still in them."
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

I love this quote but it also brings to mind a favorite joke:

A tourist in Austria came upon an old cemetery. As he came closer, he realized there was music coming from a particular gravesite. The tourist realized it was Beethoven's 8th symphony but being played backwards. The tourist thought this very odd and decided to come back the next day to see if it happened again. The next day, the tourist returned to the gravesite only to hear Beethoven's 7th symphony also being played backwards. The tourist returned day after day, each day hearing the next symphony in reverse order and always backwards. One day, as the tourist was listening to the 3rd symphony, backwards of course, he noticed the cemetery's gardener close by. The tourist stopped him and said, "You'll never believe this! Every day I come and every day I hear music coming from this grave! It's the most remarkable thing - first it was Beethoven's 8th symphony being played backwards, then the 7th and so on. Today it's the 3rd. Isn't this unusual??"

The gardener nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, returned to pruning the shrubs and said, "Oh, that? That's just Beethoven. He's decomposing."

(ba-dum-bum!)

Do you know what music is in you? Do you feel like you're letting it out or keeping it in "until" . . .until you have the time, until you have the money, until [fill in the blank]?

Of course, there is a time and place for all things. Maybe now just isn't the time to let that particular music make its debut. But there's a difference between prayerfully considering the timing and plugging our ears while singing "lalalalalalaican'thearyoulalalalala" for fear of actually having to DO something about that music.

Oh. So been there.

There now actually.

What about you? Is there something in you burning to get out? Is it a timing issue or is it a fear issue?

(I can only ask because I have been delivered from the pit of fear countless times and always seem to find a way to jump back in . . . It's sadly a familiar place for me but the Lord is so gracious to continually yank me back out.)

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all let our "music" out - whatever that may be - before we start, um, decomposing? :-)